OLYMPIADS IN INFORMATICS
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OLYMPIADS IN INFORMATICS, 2010, Vol. 4, 3-14
© Institute of Mathematics and Informatics,

ISSN 1822-7732

Encouraging Algorithmic Thinking Without a Computer

Benjamin A. BURTON

School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland Brisbane QLD 4072, Australia E-mail: bab@maths.uq.edu.au

Abstract

At the secondary school level, traditional programming competitions remain inaccessible to the vast majority of students. We describe the Australian Informatics Competition(AIC), a pen-and-paper event that is accessible to a much broader audience but still retains a core focus on algorithms. In addition to multiple choice questions, a unique feature of the AIC is its three-stage tasks that invite algorithmic thinking by posing similar problems of increasing size. In this paper we describe the AIC, the design decisions behind it, and the types of problems that it contains.

Keywords:

multiple choice contests, algorithmic tasks, three-stage tasks

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